


"In Soviet Russia, movie watches you."

by FeralCreed



Category: Captain America (Movies), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Arguments, M/M, Make Up, actual adult five year olds, discussion and mention of suicide, horrible humour, winterhawk - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 03:16:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7417438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeralCreed/pseuds/FeralCreed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint is frustrated with the fact that he's not fully healed after three weeks. Bucky has maybe been a bit too careful with him. Things happen, people fight, and hurts are patched over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"In Soviet Russia, movie watches you."

It's quiet when Bucky wakes up, sometime in the late afternoon by the angle of the sunlight painting stripes across the bed. He reaches across the covers for Clint but finds nobody there, and a brief stretch reveals that Lucky hasn't commandeered the bottom of the bed as usual. Jarvis would have told him if Clint had left the suite when he first woke, so Bucky just takes a moment to wake up a little more.

 

As he predicted the day Clint came home, their normal sleep schedule has been utterly destroyed. Clint is up at all hours of the day and night with nightmares, flashbacks, and occasional nausea. Bucky does his best to be there for him, but sometimes he gets irritable and sometimes he's just too tired to drag himself out of bed and do anything helpful. They both know how crazy it's driving him that he can't be supportive around the clock, but Bucky won't hear of Clint moving out until he starts settling down.

 

Still, it's been just over three weeks since Clint's return and things are about as bad as when the archer first came home. Nothing could ever make Bucky share his emotions on the subject, but he knows that Clint has picked up on what's going on. Bucky doesn't resent Clint or hold his trauma against him, but it would be a lot easier for him to be supportive if he could get more than two or three hours at a stretch. He honestly has no idea how Clint is on his feet. And while he's only angry at himself, for his own physical limitations, it occasionally bleeds into what happens with his friends, which only irritates him further.

 

He'd hoped to be up before Clint for once. They're mostly awake at night these days. Clint's depression and anxiety have been worse than they've been in the past year they've been dating, and Bucky sometimes has no idea how to help him. Sam has been a godsend as far as that's concerned, because even though he firmly keeps a line between patients and friends, he's always willing to give some tips and advice. Bucky has been in Clint's position plenty of times over the last hundred years, but he's only had support for the last handful, and at times he has trouble adjusting to the reversal in their roles. He's more than willing, but every so often he makes some kind of mistake that only makes him feel worse.

 

What's past is passed, though, and Bucky shoves the blankets back to get out of bed. The mechanisms of his metal arm whir softly as the plates recalibrate in adjustment to his new level of movement, and he glances briefly at it to make sure everything is as it should be before pulling on a t-shirt. He doesn't bother with pants since he's wearing boxers, and he and Clint certainly have nothing to hide from each other as far as privacy goes.

 

Clint is sitting on the couch watching _The Amazing Panda Adventure_. Bucky has no idea why, but he appreciates the selection in animal-centered nineties movies. They've certainly marathoned that genre plenty of times in the past. He puts a hand on Clint's shoulder and kisses the top of his head, pausing a moment to give his boyfriend the opportunity to tug him closer. Clint shows no interest in keeping him there, so he goes into the kitchen to find himself something for breakfast.

 

“Did you eat?” he calls, and gets a noncommittal noise in return. He gets out a second bowl and fills them both with Lucky Charms. Clint gives him a halfhearted glare for feeding him, but he well knew that Bucky would do that and he takes the bowl without complaint. While getting him to eat it is a whole new battle, Bucky is patient with him and manages to get him to eat almost the whole serving before Clint sets the bowl on the coffee table.

 

“How you doing, sweetheart?” he asks quietly.

 

“Fine,” Clint mutters. He's clearly broody about something, but Bucky knows from experience that he needs to let his boyfriend decide on his own whether or not he's going to share. Anything else tends to end negatively. Sure enough, Clint speaks up about twenty minutes later. “I'm just pissed I'm not getting better already,” he blurts out.

 

“What do you mean?” Bucky asks.

 

“I want to be able to screw around like we used to. We can't roughhouse, we can't have sex. And it's driving me crazy.”

 

“Baby, it's gonna get better,” Bucky promises him. “It might take a while, and yeah it's gonna suck while we have to wait.”

 

“And you just don't want to hurt me. Yeah, I get it.” Clint is clearly in no mood to listen, and Bucky can't blame him. Before Clint was kidnapped, the two of them were nearly always tactile, and often a little rough with each other. Neither of them treat the other like they'll break, and it's undeniable that they're a little hard-hitting in bed. While Bucky isn't treating Clint like he's suddenly fragile, he's definitely been holding back.

 

“Sucks, sweetheart. I know. But if we push too fast and go too far, it'll be even more to deal with down the road. I don't want to do something wrong and make things worse. Love you too much.”

 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Clint says, still irritated. The movie credits are playing, and he glares at the names scrolling down the screen. “I just want it over already.”

 

“Give it three more weeks and I bet you'll be feeling way better,” Bucky suggests. “I love you no matter what, Clint. Just take it easy for a little while.”

 

“Don't fucking tell me to take it easy,” Clint snaps, pulling away from him. “You didn't, when Steve was doing all that shit to get you away from Hydra.”

 

“I didn't have the chance to take it easy. Hydra would have gotten their hands on both of us if I'd tried.”

 

“See? You manned up and did what you had to, but you keep telling me to stop trying to do that. I don't need to be babied just because I hit a rough patch.”

 

“'Rough patch'? You got _kidnapped by terrorists_. That's more than a rough patch.”

 

“But it doesn't mean you need to treat me like this.” Clint stands up, snatching his bowl and taking it into the kitchen. Bucky doesn't try to stop him, but he does pick up his own bowl and follow him.

 

“Like what?” he asks, leaning against the counter and giving Clint his space. The other man doesn't like to be crowded, especially when there's any tension between them. Boxing him in is a poor choice, and Bucky understands why he wanted to be standing instead of sitting on the couch.

 

“I'm not going to break and you need to figure that out. Stop keeping me from being normal.”

 

“Normal is a very relative term.”

 

“Only sometimes. I got hurt, I got over it. You got over your stuff way faster because you had to.”

 

Bucky scoffs. “I didn't get over anything. I compartmentalized and ignored things because I was scared and didn't trust anyone. And later, it made things worse because nobody bothered to make sure I knew how to deal with things because they assumed I was doing fine. Which you know I wasn't.” Despite Bucky being a private person when it comes to personal matters, the entire team knows just about everything there is to know about the fiasco that was Bucky's first six months back. The Winter Soldier was just below the surface of the mild-mannered young man, and nobody, not even Bucky, knew what would set him off sometimes.

 

Everyone had been on edge around him, even Steve, who had tried to hide it. Bucky had gone from irritated to pissed to infuriated, and his anger had swung into depression with startling suddenness. He'd tried to kill himself twice, and the only reason his attempts hadn't been successful was because of the serum's ability to repair his body. Steve had been shocked and heartbroken, and the rest of the team had been stunned. Bucky had learned to repress and hide his emotions, and even Natasha hadn't noticed how badly off he was emotionally. After that, Steve shared everything with the team, and all of them had worked together to try to help Bucky out. Bucky had hated the team knowing so much about him, but Steve was taking no chances when it came to his best friend's life.

 

Clint had understood more than most of the others. From the beginning, he'd made it clear that he was around to keep Bucky from hurting himself and how much he knew. Bucky had hated having a babysitter but his estimation of Clint had risen somewhat when the blond didn't even try to deny the accuracy of the term. They hadn't gotten along at first, but eventually they learned to deal with each other. And it really hadn't surprised either of them when their relationship had deepened. Nobody on the team had ever been told, they'd seemed to just find out on their own.

 

So Clint knows. He was there for the third attempt and stopped it. He'd almost screamed himself hoarse at Bucky out of fear and anger, and Bucky's emotional dams had broken, letting everything out. It had been a godawful step but one that had honestly gone further toward helping Bucky through things than almost anything else he'd tried up until that point. And now, despite everything, he's trying to insist that he's fine already and that history won't repeat itself.

 

“I know what happened, I was there,” Clint says, “and therefore I know how to avoid it. Now cut it out and let me deal with things.”

 

“Yeah, like I dealt with things? With half a bottle of pills or a razorblade? I don't think so.”

 

“Oh, cut it out, Barnes. I'm not weak enough to try to throw everything away like some kind of coward, all right? Leave me alone.” Bucky recoils a little at that, and Clint's eyes widen a little as he realizes what he said. While Bucky has never been suicidal since, the two of them usually treat the topic a little more delicately given its seriousness. Their arguments are rare, and actually harsh words even rarer.

 

“Fine,” Bucky says, pushing off the counter. “You want me gone, so here I go. Don't have to deal with me the rest of the day.”

 

“C'mon, Buck, you know I didn't-”

 

Bucky swats Clint's hand off his arm. “You said it, you meant it. I'll leave you alone.”

 

“Aw, Bucky, no,” Clint murmurs after his boyfriend's gone. Lucky comes into the kitchen and nudges Clint's knee with his nose, and Clint drops a hand to absentmindedly rub at the dog's ears. He knows he's messed up, but if Bucky wanted to talk, he'd have said so. Clint needs to leave him alone for a while so he can calm down and process things. Which leaves Clint alone, with his dog, in a too-silent apartment. He's certainly not watching _Homeward Bound_ now. Bucky's gone and upset, Clint's here and upset. Out of the stunningly short list of options, hiding in bed seems like the best one.

 

Bucky comes back hours later, soaked in sweat and tired out. He's sporting several bruises that clearly show he was sparring, but his knuckles are still scuffed from his time at the punching bags. Clint isn't asleep despite being in bed, but Bucky doesn't speak to him as he gets a change of clothes. Neither of them break the silence as he moves around the room, and the sound of the shower turning on a minute later is the only noise. After half an hour, Bucky comes back out with damp hair, towelling off the ends.

 

He sits down on the bed and stares at the back of Clint's shoulders until his boyfriend turns over enough to watch him with one eye. “Talk to me, Clint,” he says. It's hardly an order. Bucky just sounds tired and resigned, like he doesn't expect to hear anything.

 

“'M sorry,” Clint murmurs, sitting up in bed. He won't look at Bucky, but he's talking, and the dark-haired soldier will take what he can get. Bucky moves over until his hip is pressing against the blanket-covered mound that is Clint's leg and waits for anything else that might be said. “I know I was wrong,” he admitted. “I didn't think, I just...”

 

“Felt like I was babying you by being careful and disrespecting your masculinity?” Bucky suggests.

 

“Well, yeah. It's stupid, I know.”

 

“No, sweetheart. The ways you avoided saying that were pretty fucking spectacular. But it's not stupid. I get it.”

 

“So I was right?”

 

“Take what you can get, jackass,” Bucky protests, elbowing him lightly. “But some may say that I might have been overreacting recently.” Clint nods and Bucky sighs, leaning his head back against the headboard. “Okay, Natasha told me to stop being such a mother hen over you because you were capable of being a fully functioning adult without me fluttering around you like a moth around a lightbulb.”

 

Clint snorts at that and slumps down in bed a little. “Is this the part where we agree to never mention this again?”

 

“No. This is the part where we both say anything else we want to say before we apologize and promise to try to do better in the future.”

 

“You know I suck at all of this stuff.”

 

“Definitely. But it's not like I haven't screwed up plenty of times myself.”

 

“True.” Clint falls quiet and Bucky lets the silence stretch between them. “Relationships would be way easier when you can just have angry sex to fix everything.” Bucky snorts and Clint rolls his eyes. “Don't tell me you don't miss it. Seriously, though, it sucks.”

 

“You know I'm not gonna go off chasing skirts because you're not up to having sex for a while, right?” Bucky asks. “I'm a pretty committed guy. And you know Tony calls me the indestructible human cockroach. No getting rid of me when I love someone.”

 

“Or when it's pizza night,” Clint mentions. Bucky chuckles and shifts his weight toward him. “I am sorry for saying all that, though.”

 

“I forgive you, sweetheart,” Bucky says instantly.

 

“I don't think you're weak. Honestly, anyone that carries through with it... They've gotta be pretty strong. And you wouldn't have survived Hydra if you were weak.”

 

“It hurt,” Bucky admits. Clint gets an apologetic, guilty look, and Bucky rolls his eyes. “I'll be over it by lunchtime.”

 

“We can get Thai,” Clint suggests. “And watch _Homeward Bound_.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“If you want?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

Clint slides down the rest of the way and mashes his face against Bucky's hip with a dramatic groan. “I fucking hate it when we're mad at each other,” he mumbles.

 

Bucky is a little more careful moving around but it doesn't take him long to lay down next to Clint. “Me too. We should agree to never, ever do that again.”

 

“That would only last until you want to put pineapple on pizza.”

 

“That was _one time_ ,” Bucky protests. Clint snorts, and when Bucky glances over at him, he laughs at his boyfriend's expression. Bucky can't help grinning in return and kisses him briefly.

 

“I really am sorry.”

 

“Yeah, sweetheart, I know. I still love you.”

 

“And here I thought you had good taste.”

 

“Please. I've got the best taste. But I've got something better than that. Got you.”

 

“Steve always told us that you were this smooth ladies' man, but I am really not seeing it,” Clint mentions, squinting at him a little.

 

Bucky snorts and moves to lay half on top of Clint, nosing against the side of his neck. “I'd rather be Clint's man than a ladies' man.”

 

“Oh my god, you're horrible.”

 

“Yep. And you're stuck with me.”

 

Clint rolls his eyes but snuggles closer. “I love you,” he said quietly. “Even with what I said earlier.”

 

“I love you too, darling,” Bucky promises. “You wanna watch that movie?”

 

“Oh, I thought I told you. In Soviet Russia, movie watches you.”

 

Bucky stares at him for a long moment. “That's horrible.”

 

Clint cracks up laughing, which sets Bucky off, and honestly? It wasn't that horrible after all.

 


End file.
